Learning to be Brief...

I took a speech class in high school and again in college. I remember how difficult it was to get through 3 minutes of a speech in front of an unappreciative audience. Even then, I realized it was important to speak with passion, and consequently, took some ribbing from my classmates for trying to be expressive.

I know what it is like to watch a parishioner plug in a set of earphones and listen to his transistor radio as I began to preach. I've watched people disappear from the service and never come back, and it always seems there is someone in the audience who falls asleep. Inevitably, someone would come to me at the end of a sermon and apologize for falling asleep. I had this happen frequently enough that I often publicly assured the congregation that it was OK to fall asleep. I would rather them fall asleep at church than at home in front of the TV. I joked that I sometimes put myself to sleep while I was preaching, and so I would not let my feelings be hurt when others fell asleep.

While I have not always been successful at following my own advice, I have realized that brevity in a sermon actually makes it more memorable. I have worked for years to refine and shorten my sermons. Alas, much of my downfall has been that I so easily stray from my prepared notes just to spontaneously tell a story that comes to mind. Of course, I have great stories to tell!!

At any rate, this week I went back through all my blogs because I discovered there were added comments that I had not seen. In doing so, I noticed something that will not come as much of a surprise to those of you know me. My earlier blogs were relatively short and my later blogs have become increasingly longer.

So, I'm off on a new quest to pare down the length of my reminiscing. Try not to fall asleep while reading these blogs. If you fall asleep while reading my blog, I can only surmise you might think I'm boring. If you do fall asleep, don't tell me; just let me think I'm interesting and you'll make me a happy man.